No party lasts forever: split happens
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In Germany they are called the Free Democrats, in the UK the Liberal Democrats and in Canada, the Liberals. In Australia they do not exist. There is not, in this country, a socially and economically liberal political force parading its wares in the political marketplace. But with the Liberal Party’s fault lines widening this week, is now the time for such a party to emerge and who might support it? The zealous determination by conservatives to destroy a liberal leader in the form of Malcolm Turnbull makes it abundantly clear that the Liberal Party is hell bent on being a right of centre conservative party and that there is no room, except in a token sense, for liberal approaches to issues. This is not a new phenomenon — it has been evident since John Howard took control of the party in 1995. I wrote about in 2003 in What’s Wrong with the Liberal Party?, a book spawned by my own disendorsement from a Tasmanian seat in 2002 because of my public support for better treatment of asylum seekers. It is time for liberals, or moderates as the media terms them, to start thinking laterally. They owe it to those Australians who find Labor and the Liberal Party too conservative on a range of issues to contemplate the beginnings of a new political force along the lines of those that currently exist in the UK, Canada and Germany. But who would vote for a genuine liberal party that stood for action on climate change, market-driven economic policies, and new thinking on issues such as drugs, gay marriage and indigenous self-empowerment and refugees? Turnbull’s own electorate of Wentworth in Sydney’s eastern suburbs is one that might find such a political force very attractive. It is a diverse, educated electorate as is, for example, Peter Costello’s former electorate of Higgins in Melbourne, or Chris Pyne’s electorate of Sturt in inner urban Adelaide. Sydney’s north shore, particularly the lower reaches, also represents a generally liberal profile. That there is yawning gap in the political ideas marketplace in this country is made abundantly clear to a “liberal” voter when he or she looks down at the ballot paper come election time. Do they vote for a cautious Labor Party that is fearful of embracing issues such as a charter of rights or more humane treatment of refugees? Or do they plump for a Liberal Party, which has some decent progressives within it such as Turnbull but whose policy direction is steered by hard-line conservatives? Of the minor forces there is only the Greens, which, while socially progressive, is economically illiterate and prone to bouts of extremism. So what sort of vote would a liberal force attract? The Free Democrats and the Liberal Democrats in the UK are the third force — they never outpoll the major parties but they influence policy through being coalition partners in the case of the Free Democrats or by potentially holding the balance of power as may occur with the Liberal Democrats after next year’s UK election. One could expect a similar scenario in Australia with a liberal party perhaps winning a handful of House of Representatives seats and some senate seats. This would make them a powerful player in the numbers game. The political hardheads will no doubt claim that these musings are the stuff of a disillusioned liberal looking for a new home. Maybe, but remember this — no political party lasts forever amalcolm turnnd splits happen. |
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35 Comments
Good Point Greg. Perhaps the Liberal rebels should just join the National Party (crikey, they need the numbers) as they seem to have more in common with them than true liberal values. They can then eek out their irrelevance amongst friends, and let the remaining moderate Liberal party build towards a future - like UK New Liberals.
@Colin Prasad: Agree, but it won’t happen, unfortunately. The left wing of the Liberals needs to break away. Such a party would have a strong appeal to those who can’t abide the National Party fruitcakes and illiberal Liberals, but still find it hard to bring themselves to vote Labor.
Yes please. Although there would be no point if they weren’t prepared to form a coalition with labor or the greens.
Actually, the moderates shouldn’t concede that the loonies represent the conservative point of view. A conservative view of the world, while informed by a pessimistic view of human nature, is nonetheless coherent. The climate denialists are just delusional reactionaries and genuine conservatives should be embarrassed to be associated with them.
So a break away party of moderates should name itself the Conservative Party.
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Also agree. I’ve posted similar suggestions on other blogs before. Notice in Canada they have a real liberal party. Australia is starving for a political party that isn’t beholden to the trade union movement nor the Hansonites and offers an alternative to the Greens as well. And Malcolm would make a fine first President of Australia. And a message to Barry O’Farrell…watch your back - remember what the Right did to Brogden? They might be emboldened enough to do it to you again.
From John Walker:
There is a problem. The conservatives in the UK are different to the US and our crazies. The UK conservatives are not nearly as barking as our lot. In Australia a new democratic liberal party (DLP!) could end up existing only to keep the crazies out of office, not that this is a bad aim. There is a lot of the quality of 1950s Labour split in the air.
Control of the existing party ‘name’ should be fought for. It is not yet time to walk away. The situation of the state of NSW with its problems of awful management and corruption shows what happens when you have a split and unelectable opposition.
If the extreme conservative wing of the Liberal Party want to form their own huddle of “preserve our bodily fluids from pinko plots”, they should leave and get a new name. Perhaps the ‘Dr Strangelove’ or ‘How I learn’t to love CO2 party’ might suit.
Doesn’t the ALP occupy this position already?
Michael,
“Doesn’t the ALP occupy this position already?”
I would say no, not really. The ALP still has an image of representing a combination of the traditional working class and the solidly left-wing middle class. There is not much scope there for the liberal middle class, ie not as left-wing, more fiscally conservative, as well as being socially progressive. I agree with Greg - that there is a large gap in the marketplace, and I am hoping that Malcolm Turnbull will be able to play a key role in resolving that problem, whether as leader of the Liberal Party, or, in a worst case scenario, as leader of a newly formed party.
Hi Jillian,
I don’t know. I guess the ALP has a residual attachment to the unions, but it doesn’t seem to make much difference to its politics. I suppose the ‘Labor’ brand might be off-putting to certain sections of the ‘liberal middle class’ on ideological basis (i.e. because of their ideology, not the party’s). As for ‘fiscally conservative’, the ALP has tried for twenty years to portray itself as such and has acted accordingly. I guess there is a substantial section of the ‘liberal middle class’ that doesn’t understand how the economy works and wants a balanced budget, rain or shine.
Overall, though, I think the centrist ‘liberal middle class’ is catered to by the existing major parties better than any other grouping, because everyone goes for the centre ground. If the ALP really was restrained by the unions and the Liberals did get dragged out to the right, I guess that space might open up. Of course, it would only maintain the dominance of the centre.
The “centrist ‘liberal middle class’” is rather to the right of what I want to vote for. Fiscally responsible, for sure, but a little more principled on social issues. Labor is too conservative for me.
Petro Giorgiou was showing the way, and Malcolm Turnbull I believe has a similar outlook. A separate party is definitely called for.
Michael,
There is a very large difference between producing a balanced budget rain or shine and borrowing and spending billions of dollars a la Rudd. It probably has been a bit too excessive. I acknowledge the economic reforms of the Hawke/Keating era.
Perry,
I like Petro as well.
If its going to happen….now is the time to do it. Malcolm Turnbull is sufficiently well cashed up, in parliament and ambitious enough that he may just do it, if he’s pushed out of the leadership position.
Mike, when you say “if it’s going to happen”, I take it you mean starting a new party. If Malcolm does that, I will be one of the first to join.
So when you guys say ‘fiscally conservative’ are you talking just talking about a balanced budget (or at least a mostly balanced budget over the cycle)? Are you neutral about whether the tax system is used for redistribution, e.g. if the budget was balanced but with more tax on higher income earners and the wealthy, to fully fund a bigger public sector and/or redistribute to the less well off?
I’m just trying to work out if ‘fiscally conservative’ is being used as a code word for ‘economically conservative’ in a more general sense or strictly as a synonym for balanced budgets. To me there’s something fishy about people claiming to be ‘socially liberal’ yet who support great income inequalities. Since how much social liberty we have depends so heavily on our incomes.
Michael, I recognise that a certain amount of income redistribution is necessary and I agree that how much social liberty we have depends a lot on our incomes. As long as everyone has at least an agreed minimum standard of living, provided by the government where necessary, then I don’t mind the income inequality involved in some people having a lot more than the minimum standard. There are people who seem to object to wealth in general, based on feelings of envy. I have seen that in the way Malcolm Turnbull is sometimes treated.
Hi Jillian,
It’s not necessarily envy. High incomes and wealth come directly at the expense of low incomes and wealth. Our income represents our claim on society’s economic output, and it’s rational for people to resent those who get more than their fair share.
Anyway, I doubt we’re going to agree on this and I don’t want to ruin our Friday nights arguing about it. I just think it’s interesting, this distinction in our political language between ‘social liberal’ and ‘economic liberal’ as if they are natural pairs, when they have opposite connotations: the restraint of political power and apology for economic power.
Michael,
I do not agree with your statement that “High incomes and wealth come directly at the expense of low incomes and wealth.” The reason is that the economy is not a fixed size. There are people who contribute so much that they create wealth, ie expand the size of the economy, and so they are not taking anything from others. I do not believe in aiming for income equality for its own sake, only in ensuring a minimum standard of living.
In terms of your distinction between the restraint of political power and apology for economic power, that probably brings us back to your original statement about how high incomes and wealth come directly at the expense of low incomes and wealth - and thus ‘economic power’ unrestrained by government is problematic.
We probably will not agree, but this illustrates the difference between the ALP (if you are an ALP supporter) and the moderate side of the Liberal Party (ie myself).
I agree we should not spend Friday night arguing over this. Heaven knows I have spent every night this week on facebook arguing around in circles about climate change (with me in support of Malcolm)! I need a break some time soon.
Hi Jillian,
Alright well this is my last post then I’m out to dinner! I agree that the economy is not of fixed size. It’s just that incomes don’t bear much relationship to people’s work effort. Property incomes in particular, by definition, are not related to work. Society wouldn’t lose much in terms of working effort from taxing the hell out of income from property (including interest) - and maybe we’d get more because those living off their wealth might have to contribute more work effort to make up for the loss. (Of course, we’d want to make sure retirees still got a decent income, but we could do that through the pension system.)
As it happens I’m not an ALP supporter; I’m a Green and a socialist.
Enjoy your Friday night!
Snide asides from (even/especially?) failed tories such as Barns “…greens are economically illiterate…” shows the Bourbon failure, “forget & learn nowt”, a genetic flaw in BorntoRule types.
Comparisons with UK/USA are almost useless due to the voting system (apart from being voluntary). European systems slightly less so being broady PR or D’Hondt, despite the iniquitous List system (which like the US’s Electoral College is to ensure that silly demokratik thingy doesn’t unduly upset their Betters).
In broad terms in Oz, 5% refuse to show, 5% spoil their ballots, 40% are rusted on Lib/Lab so that it is the remaining 10% (the much sought after ‘swingers”) who decide elections.
AR, I agree with your description of the current state of affairs:
“In broad terms in Oz, 5% refuse to show, 5% spoil their ballots, 40% are rusted on Lib/Lab so that it is the remaining 10% (the much sought after ‘swingers”) who decide elections.”
But I think Greg is suggesting a re-alignment so that the there would no longer be a choice of Liberal or Labor as the main parties, but there would be a three-way choice of say labor, liberal & conservative. I think it could work. The main potential difficulty I can see is for the liberal party to work out whether to form a coalition with labor or form a coalition with the conservatives or do neither and hold the balance of power between the other two parties. Greg’s preference seems to be for the third option. Mine would be for the coalition with the conservatives.
For all those not satisfied with the reactionary right, or the simplistic use of left and right labels, see the Political Compass. It’s got a quiz to test where your opinions fit into the scheme of things, and some very interesting background.
Here’s an Australian version of the same sort of thing.
There’s an Australian Liberal Democratic Party. A tiny, under-the-radar little outfit with no presence in Parliament, and it may never get any bigger. Then again who knows what might happen if enough people start thinking about Turnbull’s attempt to introduce some principle into the Liberals and what he came up against.
From the Liberal Democrats’ website:
’ The LDP’s position sometimes confuses those who like to apply left and right labels to political ideologies. Free trade is considered to be right-wing while drug legalisation is left-wing. Cutting tax is right-wing but defending civil liberties and gay rights is left-wing.
However, all of these positions share the common principle of decreasing the role of government. They differ from “left-wing” people who often want the government to control the economy but not our social lives, and from “right-wing” people who want the government to control our social lives but not the economy. ‘
James,
I did the quiz and got the result “Your economic freedom index is 6.5, and your social freedom index is 7.” This is pretty similar to the LDP. That party ran in Wentworth at the last federal election, but it got a miniscule number of votes, even though it campaigned in support of gay marriage etc. In Wentworth, Malcolm Turnbull already goes a long way towards fulfilling what the potential supporters of the LDP would want.
Listening to Malcolm Turnbbull today/yesterday, I am of the view that he is trying to destroy the Liberal Party if he can’t be its leader. I think you will find that the public has a sixth sense about a lot of these events, unlike the press who get it wrong every time. When so many members resign their positions people sense that there must be more to this than petulance or a main chance. You may be surprised what happens from here.
Parties like LDP are almost doomed in a short-news-cycle society. Their biggest claim to fame is deliberate underachieving. Reporters ask them “What did you do?” and the most honest answer is “We do very little, and we do it rather well.” That doesn’t inspire most people these days.
But Liberal Democrats don’t want to inspire people. They want people to inspire themselves. Still, there are major achievements there for the taking if people ever put a party like this in government. Cutting tax. Simplifying tax, like we’ve been promised for years but it never happens. Repealing mountains of laws that date from some tabloid beat-up everyone’s forgotton years ago. A “one in, one out” rule for legislation — you want to pass a new bill? find one to repeal first. There’s actually quite a lot for a liberal-democratic government to do if we ever get one.
As a single individual, even as party leader, Malcolm would not be capable of destroying the Liberal Party, even if he wanted to.
I say this with serious reluctance, but maybe the days of the party as we know it have been numbered for a while and, if not elected leader on Tuesday, Malcolm could be the unintentional catalyst of the end. For example, I have been a strong Liberal supporter for 15 years, but it would be devastating for me to see Malcolm go. If I were to reconsider my support for the party in such a scenario, that would not be Malcolm’s doing - it would be mine.
There will always be support for non-Labor parties of one kind or another. It’s just a matter of what form they take.
James, I agree that it would be extremely hard for micro parties like the LDP to get anywhere. I think it would be easier to re-configure the way a major party like the Liberal Party is set up, even if it involves a split into two smaller parties, than to start from nothing.
Richard, I’m with Jillian on that one. Turnbull tried to save the Liberals and he may yet do so. There are two kinds of conservatives. The minimal-government kind that lets society evolve its own way without imposing anything radical. And the other kind that struggle to preserve a status quo and are quite willing to use a police state to do so. Howard was the latter kind. Turnbull is more the former. For those who bemoan the useless CPRS, Turnbull would have made a better one, based on market incentives, a broader approach to reducing carbon not just emissions, and without government picking winners.
Increasingly, around the world, all major political parties are controlled by the same group of people – the one’s who print the money. The choice is a false dichotomy. You are fooling yourself if you think that you are getting anything but a different coloured tie.
Obama was elected amidst great hope, yet after rhetoric extraction, the US is still in Iraq but with more troops than before, except they now work as mercenaries for the Military industrial complex at three times the price; courtesy of that long suffering patsy, the US taxpayer. Afghanistan has become the new killing fields with collateral damage rising daily and no one giving a fig. Since NATO has been back on the job, deaths of innocent women and children have hit new highs and the opium crop is at an all time record. I won’t bother to discuss the situation in Columbia or Honduras where the elected leader was ousted in a coup because he didn’t want international banks running his country. No matter who is in power, the real policies concerning global money flows don’t change. Except that in little Australia, a group of Liberals, Independents and Nationals are not buying into the UN takeover of our sovereignty.
If you want to know what is going to happen, just read the discussion papers that come out of the tax free foundations here, in the UK and USA. Govt. policy usually emerges about two years after the paper first emerges from the relevant foundation, irrespective of the persuasion of the government. The Parliament or the Congress largely goes through the motions except for this time. Something happened and even the client follower media are confused because their co-intel is working either. Even with help from the guys on the other side to get the policy through, there is no guarantee it will pass and this wasn’t in the scenario mapping. And that means they won’t be able to leverage the global taxation scheme off the Australian model in Copenhagen. Of course, the dupes are crowing long and loud but entirely missing the point.
ETS, Cap and trade or whatever you want to call it, is not about saving the planet. It’s about fleecing the planet. If the UN wanted to save the planet they would have prevented the IMF and the World Bank selling off the third world’s resources including rainforests to anyone who wanted to cut them down. The President of Brazil, a one time champion of the people, is going to Copenhagen to inform the G20 that unlike the last ten, this year they won’t be chopping down an area of the Amazon the size of Belgium - but about 30% less. What about the animals, the plants and the indigenous people systematically decimated annually in South America, Africa and SE Asia? The Greens seems numb to these atrocities. Get some perspective for G@d’s sake. If you destroy the lungs of the world and run shipping that pollutes the oceans with oil and diesel, oceans will warm and the lungs of the earth will collapse. I am sorry. I just cannot buy into the carbon dioxide story when the real problems are here now and are far more pressing.
The real issue we face, the real political issue and the one on which the Liberals must run is “ Who do you want to run Australia – the Australian people or the United Nations!
That is what you are voting for and it just so happens that a lot of the Liberals who are small L do not want the UN telling us what to do through their de facto front man.
Yeah, a lot of truth there Richard.
With inherited wars, it’s difficult. Sometimes it’s worse to pull the knife out of a stab victim too soon. The same with wars that shouldn’t have been started, but now have to be resolved not just aborted.
And the cutting down of most of the forests … that was an outrage long before everyone was talking about the greenhouse. It hasn’t even slowed. Now the Rudd government wants farming to become unprofitable while logging marches onwards. Like, hello? Six billion and rising, what are they going to eat?
James, in relation to your comment that Rudd wants farming to become unprofitable, agriculture has been removed from the proposed CPRS. Are you referring to the CPRS before the negotiated changes or something else? (Am I really defending Rudd? It’s a strange world sometimes.
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Hi Jillian, yes before the changes Turnbull insisted on.
In the Rudd-Wong CPRS, farmers were to be penalised for emissions, but would not be offered any incentives to sequester carbon in their land.
Turnbull insisted on the converse of this and Rudd finally agreed. Farmers would NOT be penalised for emissions, but they WOULD be rewarded for sequestering carbon in their land.
To me this demonstrates that Rudd is not an AGW believer and Turnbull is. Rudd could best be described as an AGW opportunist.
@Andrew Peel,
The problem with “Conservatives” is ambiguity. Does it mean minimal government? Or does it mean trying to turn back time and stop society from evolving, by means of an iron fist and a police state? “Conservative” can mean either of these, and that’s the ambiguity at the heart of the Liberal Party’s irrelevance.
@Tomboy and @Ann Sanders:
Suppose Turnbull (upon losing the leadership) left the Liberals and joined the tiny Democratic Liberal Party. (The DLP is also a bit of a climate-skeptic party, but that’s a case of claiming special insight and goes against DLP principles.) The DLP os essentially just a registered party and brand name waiting for somebody substantial to join. Everyone would know it’s effectively a whole new party once Turnbull moved in.
And he just might attract some real heavyweights who’ve stayed away from politics up until now, because there was no bivouac for the classic liberals, or minimalists. And possibly some who’ve dropped out over the years for similar reasons, like Natasha Stott Despoja and other old-style Democrats who got squeezed out by the invasion of the green left.
Good point James: “To me this demonstrates that Rudd is not an AGW believer and Turnbull is. Rudd could best be described as an AGW opportunist.”
I enjoy the underlying assumption in the article and in comments that the liberals will have to sod off and start their own party. Eherm, don’t they already have a party ?
The more extreme a position, the more accommodating polite (centred) people in their presence become. The nutters hope we will all glance down at our shoelaces, while the climate changes around our ears and they walk away with the Liberal Party brand.
Even the Queen is supporting action on climate change (see http://www.chogm2009.org/home/node/203 ), yet those conservatives who defend her role as head of state in Australia in the next breath would call her position on climate change a fraud.
Turnbull should be showing the loonies the door not the other way around.
Andrew, I agree, by rights the Liberal brand belongs to the defenders of minimal government, minimal taxation, minimal beaurocracy, civil liberties, private property, free enterprise, and individualism.
Unfortunately, for the reasons I suggested earlier, these principles often run parallel to those of conservative-authoritarians, who like to block social progress and enshrine in the law some golden-age notion of tradition; and this often leads to a blurring of the distinction, and an assimilation of liberal parties by authoritarians. They are just as utopian, in their own way, as communists are; while communists look forward for the road to Utopia, authoritarian conservatives look for it in the past.
If the authoritarian conservatives are to be separated from the liberals, so that we can see the difference clearly once again, one or the other group is going to have to leave and set up their own party. Which one is it going to be?
James,
“If the authoritarian conservatives are to be separated from the liberals, so that we can see the difference clearly once again, one or the other group is going to have to leave and set up their own party. Which one is it going to be?”
It seems like it will come to that. In terms of which one it will be, I would say it depends on who gets the leadership on Tuesday.